My favorite interview questions for end-to-end marketing candidates
This is Part III of a series focused on hiring and building marketing teams. Previous posts were about ignoring interviewing rules and how to interview marketing candidates quickly and carefully.
Interviews are artificial situations. Everyone is on their best behavior and arrives wearing a good, thick layer of armor.
I don’t care how you are on your best day. I want to know how you are on MOST days. Your goal, as an interviewer and hiring manager, is to get to the truth. You want to know how the candidate behaves and performs on a daily basis.
That’s the version of them you’ll spend the most time with, so that’s the version of the person you want to know.
The questions below are a start. It’s your job to read between the lines for both what’s said and unsaid. This active posture will help you get a holistic sense of the candidate’s approach, intent, skill set, and attitude.
Here’s the list of questions:
1. What are you most excited about for this role?
2. ⭐️ Assume you're a team of one. What would you feel confident handling end-to-end? What parts would you need external support? Feel free to give examples.
3. ⭐️Here’s our situation. Thinking loosely of a funnel, I’d love to hear how you would get us in front of the right customers, nurture them mid funnel, close them, and fuel word of mouth.
4. ⭐️ What are you really good at, but never want to do anymore?
5. What are you excited to contribute, learn, and build?
6. What in your career are you most proud of and why?
7. ⭐️ What parts of the role do you think will be harder or less natural for you? What do you struggle with? What do you do when things come less naturally for you?
8. How would your previous managers describe what you’re good at and not as good at?
9. What other kinds of other roles besides this one are you considering?
10. What would you say your craft is? How do you continue to sharpen your craft?
11. How would you rank yourself in terms of comfort level in each of these skills? Because in this role, you’ll be a one-person marketing team. You will be the copywriter, conversion optimization specialist, technical marketer, and project manager/producer.
12. We are looking for a hands-on ‘player-coach’ who can jump in to execute when needed, while hiring and managing direct reports. How have you been a player-coach? What do you think makes someone a good vs great player-coach?
13. Describe how you're a T-shaped marketer. What areas do you have depth/breadth? What areas are not in your wheelhouse?
Here’s the rationale for why each question matters:
1. What are you most excited about for this role?
I like starting with an easy question like this. There’s no wrong answer, so you give the candidate the opportunity to warm up. It shows goodwill.
I always hated when interviewers went on a power trip—kicking up their feet (figuratively) and saying, “So. Tell me about yourself.” Gross. This is the opposite of that, thankfully.
You get to see what the candidate finds exciting about the role. Their eyes should light up answering this question.
This helps you understand if the candidate understands the role accurately. They might say, “I’m excited to manage and mentor a team,” but there is no team.
They might say, “I’m excited to get my hands dirty working with promotional campaigns again,” but the role is mainly about managing a team of specialists.
You can correct them and let them know, so you can set expectations.
2. ⭐️ Assume you're a team of one. What would you feel confident handling end-to-end? What parts would you need external support? Feel free to give examples.
You might be looking for candidates who can think of the strategy AND execute fairly independently. I’m finding more and more organizations appreciate this kind of person.
In that case, the candidate will handle the end-to-end responsibilities of projects on their plate as the sole driver. They don’t have a huge team of SMEs at their disposal. This is good to be clear about upfront.
Candidates come from all types of organizations, so they might expect a set up similar to the one they came from. The best way to set expectations is to be clear if you are, in fact, looking for a team of one. If they are given more resources than expected, it will be icing on the cake.
To give more context about what it means to be a team of one, try this:
“For this role, we’re looking for someone who’s a ‘team of one.’ That means you’ll be handling both the strategy and execution for projects on your plate. Assuming you're a team of one, what parts would you feel comfortable handling end-to-end? What parts would you need external support?”
3. ⭐️ Here’s our situation. Thinking loosely of a funnel, I’d love to hear how you would get us in front of the right customers, nurture them mid funnel, close them, and fuel word of mouth.
No room to hide here. Behavioral questions just reward candidates who were savvy enough to come prepared with go-to stories and examples. This shows how the person thinks critically and solves new problems in front of them.
Also, beware!
When you ask this, many marketers will say, “Sure! But I would need to do an audit to fully understand your situation. I would look at what’s converting well, what the data says, etc.”
Now, this in itself, isn’t bad.
The problem is when the candidate ends there and thinks that’s good enough. Or they give a vague response.
Needing to get the lay of the land before taking action is obvious. We assume every decent marketer will do that. You want to hear the candidate share their thought process with the information they have on hand. If the initial assumptions are wrong, you won't hold it against them. You can say something like this,
“For sure. Let’s do this exercise based on what you already know about the company. We want to know how you think. What’s your high level approach and specific actions/tactics you want to try? What would you try your first few weeks on the job?”
By the way, they can always ask questions they need in order to make a recommendation. This shows how proactive they are in getting the information they need to do their job.
Here’s more on why you should avoid “tell me about a time” questions, and instead ask forward-looking questions like this one.
4. ⭐️ What are you really good at, but never want to do anymore?
Just because the person is good at a skill doesn’t mean they want to do it in their next role. In fact, this might be why they’re looking for a new job in the first place.
Ten years ago, this exact thing happened to me. I was a business analyst at Gap Inc. While I loved the company, my role was almost entirely quantitative. I wanted to be closer to the product and creative side of marketing.
When I got an offer for a brand management marketing role at a beauty company, I was stoked. This was it. This was my dream job.
Turns out my boss hired me to do the EXACT THING I didn’t want to do anymore. She liked my quantitative experience because she needed me to build forecasts for a slew of upcoming product launches.
My first day on the job, my new coworkers said, “Wow! So you’re it. Your boss interviewed sooo many people for this role but very few marketing candidates had quantitative experience to the level she needed.”
Save yourself and the candidate heartache by asking what they’re good at but don’t want to do anymore.
5. What are you excited to contribute, learn, and build?
This was one of the interview questions Seth Godin asked when I joined his team. I like this question because it emphasizes that the candidate should learn AND contribute. It’s not just about what they want to do/learn on the job. It’s also about what they can bring to raise the team’s average.
6. What in your career are you most proud of and why?
You can see what they are proud of and hear about them at their best. This is a better way to read between the lines about what a person’s strength is via an example.
7. ⭐️ What parts of the role do you think will be harder or less natural for you? What do you struggle with? What do you do when things come less naturally for you?
This is a better way to ask “What is your greatest weakness?” We all have things that are harder for us, or come less naturally. The candidate should be self-aware about what these areas are. And have an approach for how they handle tasks that fall in those buckets.
8. How would your previous managers describe what you’re good at and not as good at?
It’s hard for people to say negative things about themselves. It rightfully feels like you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
That’s why this questions ask about previous managers. We shift the frame from asking the person to self-diagnose, to asking about feedback from previous managers.
This is another way to ask the previous question #7. If you get a good sense of what the person’s natural instincts are from earlier questions, no need to ask this one.
The other benefit is you can see if the candidate is mature and self-aware. Do they tense up or seem excited to talk about previous bosses? It’s hard to hide a visceral reaction when you think of a specific person. So you can see if they had decent relationships with former bosses based on their reaction too.
9. What other kinds of other roles besides this one are you considering?
This question can feel a little intrusive, so play it by ear. This question is useful to see how candidates appear under pressure because it’s slightly awkward. It’s useful to see if how they are positioning your company in their mind.
For example, maybe they are applying to your company and a bunch of other retail companies, but you don’t consider yourself a traditional retail company.
Or they are applying to mostly companies with over 5,000 people but you have under 50 people. Are they aware of that? Will this be a problem?
It’s another data point to surface and talk about expectations.
10. What would you say your craft is? How do you continue to sharpen your craft?
It’s interesting to hear people describe what they think their craft is. You can get a sense of whether people believe there is craftsmanship in their work in the first place, and hear about how committed they are to getting better at their job.
Are they fascinated and energized by their work? Do they constantly discover nuances and see their craft with new eyes? Do they read up on the classics and keep a pulse on how their field is evolving? You want people you care about their work and are genuinely curious to go deeper.
11. How would you rank yourself in terms of comfort level in each of these skills? Because in this role, you’ll be a one-person marketing team. You will be the copywriter, conversion optimization specialist, technical marketer, and project manager/producer.
Ranking adds some structure to this question. It’s not “Oh I’m good at all of these,” but rather “I am better at this than that. I’m best at X. Least comfortable with Y.” The phrasing of the question is forgiving because it acknowledges that you aren’t good at everything. It gives candidates permission to talk about what they’re not as good at.
A few reminders when interviewing, regardless of the questions you ask:
You can interrupt the candidate when they start rambling. Liberally redirect and help them stay on track. And ask follow up questions because vague answers are useless. “Can you tell me more about that? How did you do that?”
Create psychological safety—show that there are no wrong answers. We all wear so much armor. Help the candidate be honest with you.
12. We are looking for a hands-on player-coach who can jump in to execute when needed, while hiring and managing direct reports. How have you been a player-coach? What do you think makes someone a good vs great player-coach?
This is a good question for more senior roles, like directors and VPs. I’m seeing more organizations need leaders who are strong enough at their craft that they can jump in to fill gaps when needed.
Player-coaches can both play the game, and coach other players. They are incredibly valuable because this is a stressful role that few people can handle. I love hiring player-coaches when I find them.
13. Describe how you're a T-shaped marketer. What areas do you have depth/breadth? What areas are not in your wheelhouse?
This question surfaces what parts of marketing the person knows well and what parts are less familiar. It shows if the candidate is a self-aware systems thinker who can break their field into disparate parts and see where they fit within a broader system.